THE COVID CHRONICLES: LESSONS FROM A LOCKDOWN - By Andrew Pike

So Andrew Pike, wrote a book about the Oceanos which was so factual, I have read a lot of his posts now on Facebook and I think this one is so appropriate for the time we are in and so true.

THE COVID CHRONICLES: LESSONS FROM A LOCKDOWN

As this will be my 21st and last scheduled Chronicle, I thought I might share some lessons learned. Many are trite, very few (if any) are especially profound, but I'll share them in any event for posterity.

1. I have discovered that I have more than I need - clothes, food, toilet paper, whatever else I have used this lockdown. Time to simplify.
2. ‘Use by’ dates on some foods are just indicative to the nearest 5 years.
3. I’ve discovered how happy I am not driving to and from the office. And I get a bonus hour to myself each day.
4. There’s much to be said for working from home.
5. I’ve never felt safer from illness in my life.
6. It’s possible to stay fit and trim without leaving home. (I might just about be ready for my annual Discovery check-up.)
7. You spend way less money if you never leave the house and no one is delivering non-essential goods.
8. It’s probably a good idea for men at least to start the lockdown with a short haircut and for everyone to start with their hair as its natural color. (Man, can you just imagine how busy those hairdressers are going to be when C-19 is no longer a thing?!)
9. There’s a lot to do around the house.
10. It’s exciting to switch off the computer at the end of the day and find yourself at home.
11. There’s not much that I need an office for.
12. I could probably spend the rest of my life doing challenges, watching game drives, listening to concerts, learning and doing other cool things on line without getting bored. Or I could just read a good book. Either way works for me.
13. There’s inherent good and kindness in most people (but a lockdown often activates the stupid gene as well).
14. A lockdown is an incredible way to test the strength of close relationships.
15. You don't need to be physically with people to connect and engage with them.
16. Leadership is everything for the success of a lockdown, but then again, so is compliance.
17. A lockdown is an amazing opportunity to rethink, repurpose, recalibrate and transform your life and each moment of your life.
18. The ease with which you move through a lockdown is directly proportional to the purpose, gratitude, connection and optimism with which you live your life.
19. There is no single profound truth which is unique to a lockdown.
20. Lockdown = Life. How you play this lockdown will mirror how you play Life itself.

Final CSSA awards:

CoMs for MOTIVATION and INSPIRATION to everyone who has provided entertainment, opportunities for growth and distractions during this lockdown.

CoMs for CREATIVITY to everyone who has said 'Yes' to this time and found ways to transform your thinking and behaviour.

CoMs for humour to everyone who made me and others laugh and helped cheer up the world.

CoMs for KINDNESS, GENEROSITY and THOUGHTFULNESS to:
* Everyone in the frontline of the fight against COVID-19: doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, counselors, essential service providers in the municipal sector, government, food parcel providers, transporters, couriers and whoever else I may have forgotten.
* Kazalette, Jeśka, Stefan and Joanne, for all that you bring to the world.

I have already awarded a lifetime BRAIN-FART CoM to Donald Trump, so what more can he be awarded? He has once again excelled himself by cutting off funding to the World Health Organisation, essentially blaming them for the 635,000 infections and more than 30,000 deaths in America, when he can personally claim responsibility for the bulk of those. Perhaps a Super Lifetime CoM in this category?

Thank you all for reading my Chronicles and for being willing to play in this space.

I wish everyone well for Lockdown: Phase 2, which starts at midnight tonight.

I'm not a celebrity, get me out of here ...

Well I've been speaking to a producer and his assistant in Germany for the last month, they found me on the internet from my blog about the Oceanos.  They were doing a story about the sinking for television and were going over to the UK to interview Moss and Michael, and they wanted to fly me over to London as well so I could be interviewed along with them.  However it was just impossible to try and take time off work and I also had Irene and Candice coming over that exact same week, so I decided that I wouldn't give it a miss.

Then the producer phoned me and said that if I could not get time off work then they would fly to Ireland to Dublin and interview me here, wow okay, and they would fly over on a Friday and we could do all the shooting on the Saturday which meant I did not have to take time off work.

Torsten the producer said they would be at my house at 10 on Saturday morning, well they arrived early I had just got out the shower, so panic panic - anyway I was dressed, and OMG winter had arrived suddenly so it was freezing.  They wanted to go down to the harbor and do some shooting first and then come back to the house.  So I took my car and we drove into town and down along the Liffey, we arrived at one of the passenger terminals but there were all these official looking people who gave us the hairy eyeball.

So off we went to the other side of the bridge and through the Eastlink Toll, and stumbled upon a small rowing & yacht club.  The people there were so nice to us and let us film there, it was great fun but freezing!  Luckily though the sun was shining.  After interviewing me for what seemed eternity, they interviewed Irene - 4 hours later we were still there, neither Irene or I had, had any breakfast so we were starving.

Eventually we headed back to our house after making one stop on the bridge by customs house so they could get some photos, and then home.  I headed straight for the kitchen to prepare food for the masses and then it was interviewing again, while they ate they went through all my memorabilia from the Oceanos and took photos and stuff.

They eventually finished at about quarter to five and by that time Irene and Candice had to rush off to catch their plan, but what a day .... I was exhausted last night and fell asleep just after 9.  At least this time I am getting paid for my troubles.

OCEANOS Survivors' Stories

I was delighted to receive and Advance copy of the book "OCEANOS Survivors' stories" in the post yesterday, actually it was while I was sitting watching the Oceanos production on NBC's website, that the door bell rang.  The post man had a bundle of stuff for me it felt like Christmas, and amongst this was the book from Ian Uys.   He even signed and dated it.

What was more unbelievable was that the book contained my whole story as I wrote it on my Oceanos blog, also majority of the photos that I sent him are in the book too.  So last night I went to bed early so I could read, and by the time I put the book down two hours had past, my story is intermingled with other survivors stories, which makes for fascinating reading as I know my story, but don't really know anyone else's.

My name and my photographs are all over the book and I am first mentioned in Chapter 1, page 1 " Cape of Storms" in the last paragraph and then all over the book, it's weird reading my story in a book.  I have not gained financially from this book, but who knows where it may lead to.

If you would like a copy of the book, you can order directly from Fortress Books, it retails for R195.00 plus postage of R20.00 per book.

Here are the details:

Fortress Books,P O Box 2475,
Knysna, 6570
South Afica

Call or Fax Us at:
Tel (027) 044 382 6805 Fax (027) 044 382 6848.
E-mail us at fortress@iafrica.com

For local USA orders contact:
Uys Enterprises
1159 Luthersville Road
Luthersville, GA 30251
partsforsale@uys.com 


http://uys.com/fortress/index.htm

"Miracle on the wild coast" - NBC, America

I just had a phone call and email from Justin @ NBC in New York to tell me that after many months of getting an Oceanos production together, they will be airing it on NBC tomorrow evening, 23rd May 2010, but here is the email he sent me:

Just wanted to pass along some exciting news. Our Oceanos program, "Miracle on the Wild Coast" is set to air here in the states tomorrow night, Sunday May 23rd. The show is Dateline NBC and we are on at 7pm (1900) EST (for any of your states-based readers.) So sorry about the last minute notice. I just found out myself a day or two ago and it's a bit of a sprint to the finish.

After our airing, most of the show will be available to watch on our website: www.dateline.msnbc.com   ...along with a slideshow and some web exclusive clips featuring more rescuers and survivors whose interviews didn't make the television program. The show, incidentally is an hour-long and reported by our correspondent Keith Morrison.

Here is a clip from tomorrow nights show.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

My Week ...

Well my broadband has become so slow that it is unbearable, especially when you are trying to do anything on the blog or of course catch up on news on facebook, so I do need to contact my ISP provider and either give them a boot or a kick up the ... old proverbial!

This week has flown once again, last Sunday we just had a pyjama / tracksuit day, did not budge out of the house, it was rather nice for a change.

Most of the week was just Work, home, sleep - however I did get an email from production company about a story they were doing for Discovery Channel on the Sinking of the Oceanos and Moss Hill, anyway he wanted to fly me over to the UK to do an interview with them for the story, and after a few emails backwards and forwards they would have wanted me to go immediately and just told them it was impossible, so within about 24 hours they had booked a flight over to Dublin and were coming to interview me on Sunday here, but I will get back to that story later.

Wednesday was college, then Thursday came and went and finally FRIDAY the start of the long bank holiday week-end, our last bank holiday until May next year! (That's besides Christmas, New Year, Paddy's day and Easter as those are public holidays). Em was also breaking up from school, and I had made an appointment at Revive, so sitting outside the school and Mandy gives me a call to find out if I want to pop over for a coffee and so Em can play with Aron. So grab Em off to revive, then to the creche to confirm her booking for next week (she is going to the creche for the week), then to the Spar and then off to Many, well it took us 45 minutes to travel about 3 miles, the traffic up to Dundrum was a nightmare and we found out later that it was because the new Hamleys store had opened the previous day. Anyway we finally got there and could only stay for an hour as my cousin Jannie was coming for Dinner, thank goodness I had made the lasagna the night before and just had to do salad and stuff.

We left there round five and thank goodness the traffic wasn't too bad from there to our place. Got home, got Em in the bath, made the salad, got Em out bathed and then wanted to turn the computer on to check my mail, D gets home and 15 minutes later the doorbell rings, it's my cousin and his early, mainly because he is flying back to SA in the morning on an early morning flight. It was great catching up with him, and because Em did not have ballet or Drama on the Saturday she got to stay up late.

Saturday we got to sleep in a little bit, however I had a hair appointment and was then meeting a friend for lunch. I hadn't seen her for ages so it was great catching up and before we knew it, it was four o'clock and the rain was coming down in torrents, so I got D to come and pick us up, then it was off home to get changed as we were going to Diep with the gang to celebrate Kelly's birthday. Funnily Kelly landed up next to me at the hairdresser so we ended up chatting for ages which was so nice, because I knew we probably would not get too much of a chance to chat later. So get dressed, get D to fetch the baby sitter, and off we go a little early mind you, but we had a bottle of wine before everyone arrived.

It's amazing how there are 5 couples and in actual fact it was Natalie that introduced us all to one another and we all tend to get on well, even the husbands - so Thank You Natalie, if it wasn't for you I would not have met such wonderful people. So there was Moi, Nat, Tracy, Mady, Kelly, D, Charl, David, Warren and Malcolm. We were seated about 9 and the whole evening seemed to go so quickly, the food was wonderful, the company was wonderful and the evening was really really good! It all ended too soon, Tracy, Warren and I spent a lot of time talking about growing up in the South and the conversation just tended to be around everything and I suppose the common element is us all being from South Africa. By the time we were leaving to go home all I could think about was the TV crew arriving at 10:00 in the morning, so we went off to get in the car and we were Clamped! Thank goodness they did not take long to arrive to unclamp us.

Sunday morning ... I am up at about 8 too nervous to eat breakfast and then down to the study to look for all my Oceanos paraphernalia, which luckily did not take me long to find. Then quick bath get dressed and wait, they got lost so ended up only arriving after 10:30. Eric & Chris, they transformed our lounge into a Studio in a very short time, D took Em off to the dump to take all the garden refuse and then to feed the ducks just so that she was out the way. And then the interview started, I must say that they are the nicest people I have met in a long time, besides the French guys who interviewed me, but they were equally as nice. They made me feel really at ease and the interview although it went on for over an hour did not feel like it.

They then did some shots of me in the kitchen paging through my scrap book, D and Em came home just as Eric & Chris had finished packing up, we all got in the car and went off to the Dockland to get something to eat, Eric treated us to lunch at Milano's. It worked out really well as Milano's which is an Italian restaurant really caters for the children, they had a children's section with a box of toys and all the kids just congregate round the box of toys, giving the adults a time to chat and not really have to worry about them. After lunch and a bottle of wine, we went out to the River and Chris did some more shots and then some of D, Em and I. We had a lovely afternoon and headed home, only got home at about 4:30 but it was really nice.

I was exhausted by last night and fell into bed at 9:30, only to wake up 3 times and then get out of bed at 6:30 this morning (on a bank holiday). Em and I are going shopping today so lets see how the day pans out, till later have a wonderful week!